behind the book 1
September 2012
main
L A Larkin at
Detaille Island,
Crystal Sound.
Inky waters of Fish Islands,
Graham Land.
I must understand the skills he will need.
I have to know about station life, essential
survival skills, crevasse rescue, emergency
radio frequencies and polar first aid. What
terminology might Luke – an Australian
glaciologist – use? What is the difference
between fast ice and pancake ice? How
can I tell if a snow-bridge is masking
a crevasse? Can an adult leopard seal
really eat a person? This trip may not
answer all of my questions, but the single
most important part of my adventure is
experiencing the harshness of the climate
so I can imagine what my characters are
feeling as I send them to hell and back.
So I am on my way across the Southern
Ocean, filled with excitement, regardless
of my heaving stomach.
Why does this particular tale have to be
set in Antarctica? I write stories about
topics that fascinate me – in the case of
Thirst, humanity’s exploitation of our
planet. Earth’s fragile polar regions play a
vital role in regulating our climate. With
around 70 per cent of the world’s fresh
water frozen in Antarctica, the impact
of melting polar ice on global sea levels
is potentially catastrophic. The West
Antarctic Ice Sheet (which I was amazed to
learn is half the size of Australia) is believed
to be increasingly unstable because of global
warming, and one particularly vulnerable
glacier – the Pine Island Glacier – is
thought to be critical to preventing
this enormous ice sheet from sliding
into the sea. Thirst takes place on and
around this glacier.
Once in Antarctica, I am struck
by the colours: blue, white, grey and
an inky black ocean. There is no
green. The smell of ammonia from
the penguin faeces burns my nostrils.
The cold – even in summer – claws
through my many layers of clothing
and chills me to my core. In the
zodiacs we often cut the engine
and enjoy the silence, which is
occasionally broken by the roar of ice
collapsing into the sea, the bark of a
fur seal or the squawk of a penguin.
I learn to keep my water bottle
close to my body so it doesn’t freeze.
I am dressed in a canary-yellow
parka so I am easier to find if I get
lost or am caught in a storm.
I discover that somebody must
always know my whereabouts: that’s
why turning a small numbered tag
every time I leave and return to the ship
is critical.
I begin to comprehend the isolation of
station life, especially in winter when the
sea ice cuts off all outside access. I am told
of an Argentinean doctor who couldn’t
bear to spend another winter of almost
permanent darkness at Almirante Brown
Station, so he burned it to the ground.
The isolation, and how people might
cope with it, is brought home to me one
day. I am standing in the kitchen of a long
wooden hut with green-and-white checked
curtains, a jigsaw puzzle of an English village
scene on the table and a pair of long johns
hanging above the stove to dry. I flick
through a World Sports magazine, dated
August 1953. I am on Detaille Island in a
British hut abandoned in a hurry in 1959.
The cold, dry air has preserved the building
and its contents so well that it feels as though
it was left only yesterday. I stare at an iron,
fascinated that anyone could bother to iron
clothes in Antarctica. I then realise that
creating a little bit of England and keeping
up appearances – hence the ironing – was
the inhabitants’ way of dealing with the
isolation. I take plenty of notes and photos;
this is a location I want to use in my story.
I am lucky enough to be sailing with
two inspirational people. The first is Jeff
Rubin, author of Lonely Planet’s guide
to Antarctica, who is a treasure trove
of fascinating information. The second,
Luke Saffigna, is an Australian whose
passion for Antarctica will be mirrored by
Thirst’s central character. Since I
am writing a thriller and am about
to unleash murder and mayhem on
the unsuspecting inhabitants of my
story’s Hope Station, we debate how
governments might react to the first
ever murder in Antarctica. I discover
guns are banned. This gets me
thinking: how might a station defend
itself against armed assailants?
Antarctica is not only the
coldest, highest, windiest and driest
continent, but it also has no national
government or police force and
no judicial system. It is managed by
the Antarctic Treaty, to which Australia
and New Zealand are signatories. This
agreement stipulates that there should
be no mining for minerals, no testing of
nuclear weapons and no military action.
Scientific research is shared among nations
and it is a place of peace. Sounds like
Utopia? It is, and long may it last. It seems
that other visitors agree. Andrew Denton
sums it up well:
‘If Antarctica were music it would
be Mozart. Art, and it would be
Michelangelo. Literature, and it would be
Shakespeare. And yet it is something even
greater; the only place on Earth that is still
as it should be. May
we never tame it.’
Thirst by L A Larkin
is published by Pier 9,
rrp $29.99 .
You can read more
about L A Larkin’s
Antarctic adventures
at lalarkin.com/blog.
good reading September 2012 19
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